This exhibition featured works from the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art along with select loans by Anri Sala, Lorna Simpson, Bruce Nauman, Melik Ohanian, Marepe, Sherrie Levine, Trisha Brown, On Kawara, Francis Alÿs, and Gabriel Orozco, among others. Many of these artists expand upon the legacy of Conceptual Art of the 1960s, asking what happens when their works reflect and reveal the very methods and conditions of their making. They invite us into their creative process as they probe traditional boundaries between draft and final form, original and copy, and performance and documentation. The works on view meditate on universal themes such as time, nature, the human body, counting and numbering, language, and possibilities of reproduction. In each instance, artists return to foundational ideas to generate revelatory works of art that create anew as they begin again.

The exhibition is organized into three themes. In Actions and Echoes, Bruce Nauman and Anri Sala appear to document the rehearsal or repetition of movements or phrases in video footage. Tracking the dates, environment, and weather, works by On Kawara, Rosemarie Trockel, and Anthony Campuzano turn cycles of charting time and landscape into material for their works inTime Lapses. In Repeated Gestures, artists Marepe, Matt Suib, Gabriel Orozco, and Fiona Banner recompose recognizable imagery to examine patterns of visual culture, cinema, and sports, while Melik Ohanian and Trisha Brown use performance to create drawings and videos. Throughout, the artists in Begin Again harness repetition to heighten the impact and messages of their works.

Special thanks to Luiza Repsold França, former Daniel W. Dietrich II Fellow in Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art who assisted in all aspects of this installation, along with Stephen Keever and his AV team, and Alison Tufano, Collections Assistant.